City Harvest pastor warned over tweets

SINGAPORE - The Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) yesterday issued a warning to a City Harvest Church pastor about contempt in two of his tweets.

On May 5, Mr Tan Kim Hock had tweeted, referring to The Straits Times, that he was "amazed at the efficiency of ST. They knew it while the court is still ongoing, or do they know earlier...".

The next day, he sent out another tweet saying, "Ecclesiastes 3:16... I also noticed that under the sun there is evil in the courtroom. Yes, even the courts of law are corrupt!".

The AGC took issue with both tweets, saying in a statement yesterday that the tweet that refers to the newspaper insinuates that the State Courts had given it preferential access to information on whether the church leaders in an ongoing court trial had a case to answer.

The statement added that the "Ecclesiastes tweet insinuates that the 'courts of law' in Singapore are 'corrupt', and in particular, that the Court hearing the City Harvest Trial is corrupt."

The AGC said it takes the view that the insinuations in the two tweets scandalise the Singapore judiciary.

"These insinuations are scurrilous, false, and made without any objective basis," it said. Mr Tan was asked to apologise on Twitter within seven days.

This article was first published on June 4, 2014. Get The New Paper for more stories.